Seeking advice from more experienced trap shooters. Shot a few rounds of skeet, then went to the trap range. Forgot to switch from a skeet choke to a full choke. No dustballs, but good fragmentation. Any negatives to using such an open choke, especially from the 16-yard line?
Skeet choke for Trap
- Thread starter amdsmokem
- Start date
Most likely you will find gaps in the shot pattern and have misses that should not be otherwise. That being said if your not that good you might get hits you would not have otherwise. I want to know that there are no holes in my pattern so I only have to worry about myself and not my equipment.
- Location
- West Central Alberta
For trap I've been using improved modified and it seems to work well for me.
If your gun throws evenly distributed patterns with any given choke and ammunition combination the rest is up to you. For 16 yard trap with Skeet choke keep your shots close, don't ride the bird out. The results will be the same as Skeet at the same ranges. A tighter choke will allow longer shots which in turn will allow a tiny bit more time to steady and control your swing which usually results in more breaks.
Skeet choke is too open for me. However, you can still get decent scores particularly if you are are fast on the target. You can get fairly good breaks with a Modified choke but most veteran trap shooters like improved mod or full to get really good breaks.
- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
Will definitely work on first shot for doubles. For singles though I'd want a little tighter for consistency. You don't want to rush the shot and start getting a bad habit of not swinging smoothly or jump shooting the streak. Personally I shoot a light mod for singles and if I'm on my game it inkballs them as well as full!
Falconflyer
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said but I've tried trap with a skeet choke and didn't see much difference in how many birds I broke. However that was a few years ago and I'm not as quick on the draw as I once was so it might make a difference now days. A MOD choke is about the most open I'll use but most of my trap guns are fixed FULL anyway so that makes choke selection real easy!
bdft
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
After all your experimentation you will find that a IM to full choke and any old target load works best. Go on Trapshooters.com and search for Neil Winston's posts. He's gone now but he did a tremendous amount of research on chokes and loads, shot speed etc.
I was thinking along Winston's lines as I read from the start. Of course nobody aims a trap gun, but the more open chokes might lull you into bad habits, and make you less critical of your pellet swarm placement, in the clay's trajectory. Enjoy your research.
I started shooting trap casually years ago. When I asked about chokes when I first started, I was told go full or go home 
. It didn't matter if you were at 16, 27 or somewhere in-between yards. Since a chip is the same as a smoke, I didn't let that attitude bother me much. I was a casual, having a relaxing time shooter so I did not play around with trying out different ammo brands/chokes/pattering boards. I stuck to the 16 yard line with a modified choke and didn't look back. I break 21-23 clays typically and sometimes 24. Occasionally I get that 25th . Just having fun.
. It didn't matter if you were at 16, 27 or somewhere in-between yards. Since a chip is the same as a smoke, I didn't let that attitude bother me much. I was a casual, having a relaxing time shooter so I did not play around with trying out different ammo brands/chokes/pattering boards. I stuck to the 16 yard line with a modified choke and didn't look back. I break 21-23 clays typically and sometimes 24. Occasionally I get that 25th . Just having fun.I started shooting trap casually years ago. When I asked about chokes when I first started, I was told go full or go home
Try full next to time you shoot. If you can avoid thinking about the tight choke, I would be surprised if your scores changed. I just watched 6000+ Trap targets get shot over the weekend. The majority of misses had nothing to do with choke.
- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
99% of misses come from the space located between the ears, the other 1% come from the space between the ears. Did I mention 100% of misses come from the space between the ears?? ...at least if your gun fits and shoots where you are looking! I broke 289x300 of this weekends singles using a #5 choke in my TMS..it measures out to a LM(light mod) constriction and it absolutely crushes targets. I shot 96x100 in the Rod Boll Handicap friday and tied with four other shooters for 5th place. After the shoot-off I took the 5th place trophy home. I ended up 19th of 400 on the HOA 700 this weekend. I never shot a choke tighter than IM. In my doubles gun I shot LM for the first shot and M for the second. I used the same ammo for all 7 events, Federal Top Gun 1 1/8oz #7.5 @1145fps.
If someone switched out the modified for a full without me knowing, would I notice? That would be a interesting exercise.
I've done absolutely terrible when I fail to concentrate on the task at hand. In other words, if my head is not in the game I'm just wasting ammo. Something else, 50%+/- of my losses are at station #3. So on those times I miss four, two will happen on #3. You know, its appears to be a easy shot then I miss. Its a little frustrating until I move to station four, then its history. One other thing, my right eye is only slightly dominant. Sometimes my left eye will take over which I'm sure accounts for some of my losses.
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- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
I have the same issue, it started in 2015. It is called cross-dominance. I went to an optician in Edmonton( Barry Nolt) who is a sporting clays shooter and caters to shooters in his practice. He was the one who determined my issue and helped me to work through it. I place a tape dot on my glasses that blocks my left pupil but still allows me to shoot with both eyes open and retain a better peripheral view.
Occasionally I've seen someone with a small round disk on their glasses. From what you just said, a more costly version of translucent tape. I should give that a try.
